Sometimes Mistakes are Meant to Be
by twerkforkordei
Summary: A love story in which Ally is told to paint what she truly feels.


**Sometimes Mistakes are Meant to Be**

Ally sat on her stool in art class, not knowing where to start. "Paint what you feel. Paint something that's in your heart," her teacher, Ms. Kordei, prompted. "Show the canvas everything you are."

Ally picked her brush up, carefully dipping it into the deep shade of blue on her palette. As her brush touched the canvas in front of her, the blue rippled into the pores of the canvas. Touch by touch, the brush formed colours that attempted to reveal more and more of her soul. Blue. Calamity. Contentment. A hint of uneasiness. Mostly serenity, though. _Swish_. "Oh no!" Ally exclaimed.

Ms. Kordei glanced up from behind the teacher's desk and shot her a questioning glance. "Is something the matter?"

"No, Ma'am," Ally hurriedly put her brush down. "I painted a little too much there by accident. It's okay, I'll fix it."

Ms. Kordei sternly told her again that silence was of utmost importance, then went back to examining other artworks behind her desk. Dinah, Ally's desk mate and best friend, turned to her and whispered, "No, don't start over. Sometimes mistakes are meant to be." With that, she nodded at a bewildered Ally, picked her own brush up and went back to working on her fiery piece.

Ally had always played by the rules. Everything deemed right by her parents, by her friends, by society, dictated the way in which she did things - the way in which she painted. She had never let her true emotions show, with fear of being controversial, with fear of being different from what was _normal_. Having been brought up in a religious family, she learnt - sometimes the hard way - that every little scandalous thing could incite a huge uproar. 17-year-old Ally now had the words "normal" and "same" etched in her values.

But Dinah knew that this girl could not be so simple. In society, nobody was normal. One could try their mightiest to be normal, but they never would be.

So Dinah suggested Ally join this art class to help her loosen up a little. And now Ally was here, not daring to try anything new as usual. She had spent fifteen minutes just staring at the empty canvas before her, not knowing where to begin, while Dinah smoothly transitioned into Painter Mode and was already finished with half her painting.

With Dinah's advice, however, Ally put her brush down, picked another one up and dipped it into a light maroon. Hesitant, she lightly caressed the canvas with her brush. Closing her eyes and focusing on the feelings in her soul instead of the people around her, she then more bravely pressed her brush onto the canvas. The maroon started to take the shape of a girl. A young girl staring into the distance, probably fourteen, arguably sixteen.

Ally used a black-coated brush. The girl's eyes began to form. Darkly shaded, passionately alone. A pink dress, with patches of white. A facade of purity, of innocence, which outlined the girl's character. Well, on the outside, anyway. Inside, the girl remained _brown_. Brown paint splashed onto the figure of the girl on her canvas. Just like that, a girl with so much depth in her soul was surfaced.

Black - for hidden truths. Pink - for outward normalcy. Brown - for conflict between the two.

Black. Pink. Brown. Black. Pink. Brown. Soon, the colours merged into one another, leaving no trace of straightforwardness behind. Everything was so much more complex now.

The first bell rang, jolting Ally out of her absorbance in her painting of the girl. "You have 30 more minutes left to finish your painting," came the unsmiling voice of Ms. Kordei.

"I can't. I can't finish this. It's too much, I've painted too much," Ally began to panic, feeling more uncomfortable than ever. With a swift hand, she grabbed her canvas, preparing to tear it into shreds, when Dinah snatched it away.

"Allyson, listen to me," Dinah interjected. "It's art. Art represents what you are. I don't understand what you're painting, and neither will anybody else who sees this - only _you_ can understand who you are. And only _you_ can truly feel it."

Ally inhaled deeply, then exhaled, fists steadily unclenching.

"We can all speculate, we can all judge, but that shouldn't matter. Because what's important is that you're true to yourself," Dinah stressed in a slow voice, then calmly placed the canvas in front of Ally.

"Dinah Jane Hansen and Allyson Brooke Hernandez! Did I say you can speak?" Ms. Kordei stood up and questioned. Shaking their heads, their gazes turned back to their canvases. Ally picked another brush up, nodding to herself. "Okay, I can do this."

She took another deep breath, again unaware of how to continue the painting. As the clock's ticking formed a steady beat, Ally closed her eyes and waved her brush over her canvas.

Purple dotted the other half of the canvas, slowly turning into the dress of another girl. A girl who represented confidence. A guiding light, almost.

A hint of red delineated the girl's figure, hinting at a girl who remained hopelessly but passionately in love.

Shades of yellow made up the girl's features. Unrequited love.

With the three colours gently blending into one another, the purple took the place of the yellow, and the red took the place of the purple. Although the myriad of colours remained messy and, from some angles, ugly, it engraved itself in Ally's head as beautiful. She leaned back on her stool, tilting her head from one side to the other, then narrowing her eyes to get a better perspective of her painting.

The different colours almost covered the deep shade of blue she painted with at the start of the class. With the conflict between hidden truths and societal norms in one girl, and the hopeless romantic in the other girl, the blue seemed now to be less prominent. It seemed now to merely lie underneath the mosaic of colours that reflected complexity. There was not even a hint of calamity within the mess that now situated itself on Ally's canvas. It was, in many ways, _scandalous_.

Ally looked in the direction of her canvas, but her eyes were unseeing.

_14-year-old Lauren stared into the distance, body resting on the foot of the slide at her neighbourhood playground. The day's events flooded into her head yet again. "Argh," she groaned, desperately trying to lock them out. _

"_What makes a lesbian a lesbian?" She had asked her mother._

"_People only become gay if they've been hurt by the opposite sex. You are definitely not, because you have a loving father and brother," her mother had replied solemnly. Her words remained etched in her heart. She did not understand why she was so affected by what her mom had said. _

_Sure, she had a loving father, who was always willing to help her get where she wanted to be in life. Sure, she had a loving brother, whom she loved and respected dearly. But if what her mother said were true, then what was that feeling she knew so well - the feeling she felt when that cute girl from across the street walked by, the feeling she felt when her teacher flashed her a playful smile, the feeling she felt when her best friend let her gaze linger just a little longer than it should? _

"_Yeah, that's true," Lauren had said in response. But deep down, she knew it was not. _

"_Hey Lauren, you ready?" A voice interrupted her thoughts, and she lifted her head. Her eyes fell on Camila, whom she had invited earlier to come over for a movie. Camila walked towards her in a purple dress whose hem reached just above her kneecaps. That was the same dress Camila was wearing when she told Lauren she loved her._

"_I know, I know the society we live in sucks. I know everything around us prevents us from being together openly. But I don't care that this might be just one-sided love on my part. I don't care that it might be unrequited love. I just know that if I don't say this I will live to regret it. So I'm saying it - I really like you," Camila had said, before turning red and walking briskly away._

_Lauren had been left standing there in shock. She had seen the desire in Camila's eyes every time she wore a singlet, every time she smiled at her, every time they spent time together, just the two of them. She knew it killed Camila inside - that she couldn't act on her desire to take her hand and slow dance to the their favourite songs, to hold her tight whenever she became quiet and kept to herself, to tell her that it's okay to be who she really was._

_Nonetheless, for the next few months, they had become strangely comfortable in the presence of each other. If it were possible, they even became closer, with their lingering stares and the smiles they shared with only each other, even though neither of them acted on the confession. Until presently, that is._

"_I love you," came Lauren's reply._

_Camila stopped walking, and gaped at Lauren. "Excuse me?"_

"_I love you," Lauren repeated, pulling Camila towards her._

"_What about society, our parents, our friends, the world - what? This is a mistake, Lauren. What if someone finds out?" Camila frowned slightly, but let herself be pulled towards Lauren. She sat on Lauren's lap at the foot of the slide and leaned her head on Lauren's shoulder._

_Lauren blushed at their proximity. "Sometimes mistakes are meant to be."_

_In that moment, all was calm._

Before Ally knew it, the second bell rang. Ally was awakened from her daydream to find that parts of her canvas was smeared with her tears. Sniffing, she wiped her tears away and tried to dry her canvas. Her attention was drawn to the two girls she had painted. "I'm proud of you guys," she whispered, too softly for anyone to hear, a smile surfacing through her tears. "I just wish I were as proud of myself too."

Ms. Kordei stood up from behind her desk. "I trust you've all finished your paintings. Could we have everyone present say something about their pieces before I dismiss you? Ally Brooke Hernandez, you're up."

Ally got up from her stool and walked to the front of the class, shaking. Her hands clutched her painting possessively, as if not wanting to let go of a part of her that was so dear. "My painting," she began with a trembling voice. "My painting is of two girls, raised with strong religious faith, who understand that God did not create everyone equal."

A horrified gasp rippled through the classroom. With Dinah's encouraging nod, Ally continued. "Some of us are different. As some of you say, those are just mistakes on His part. But sometimes, just sometimes, mistakes are meant to be."

Silence deafened the classroom while Ally lifted her canvas and walked back towards her stool. Silence, followed by applause and murmurs of "preach it" and "word".

Ally's world was still a mess - a mosaic of black, pink, brown, purple, red and yellow. But in that moment, all was blue.


End file.
